The Bitcoin price once again dipped below $8,000 on Tuesday, demonstrating an inability to break out of its prolonged slump. The wider markets failed to fare much better, placing the cryptocurrency market cap at risk of descending below the $300 billion mark

Source: CoinMarketCap

At present, the market has an aggregate value of $301.8 billion, down from $320.4 billion on Monday. This translates into a single-day index decline of six percent.

Bitcoin Price Enters Sub-$8,000 Territory

The Bitcoin price continued to trend down on Tuesday. The flagship cryptocurrency has spent the majority of the day hovering around the $8,000 mark, and while it has thus far resisted further downward pressure it is unclear whether this support level will hold. At the time of writing, the Bitcoin price was trading at $7,945 on Bitfinex, which translated into a $135.4 billion market cap.

Bitcoin Price Chart

Ethereum Price Continues to Struggle

The Ethereum price, on the other hand, lagged the index with a single-day decline of eight percent. At present, Ethereum is priced at $460 on Bitfinex, down from approximately $500 the previous day. Ethereum now has a $45.3 billion market cap.

Ethereum Price Chart

The decline came despite a report that Coinbase is adding support for the ERC20 technical standard, which suggests that Ethereum-based tokens may get listed on the firmís cryptocurrency exchange and brokerage platform in the future.

However, reports also emerged that cryptocurrency mining hardware manufacturer Bitmain has developed the first Ethereum ASIC miner, which could lead to some contentious debates about centralization if these miners are released before Ethereum makes its transition to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm.

Altcoin Market Caps Evaporate as Bitcoin Consolidates Position

The wider altcoin markets posted index-lagging declines, allowing Bitcoinís market share to tick up to 45 percent. Thatís not to say that there were not outliers, but the vast majority of altcoins brought investors dismal returns.

Altcoin Price Chart

The Ripple and Bitcoin Cash prices managed to stay in front of the index, though they still posted 24-hour declines of five percent and three percent, respectively.

Litecoin and EOS, meanwhile, trailed the index with declines of eight percent and nine percent, respectively. The Litecoin price is now valued at just $141, while EOS is priced at $5.54.

Stellar, Cardano, and NEO each declined by six percent, while IOTAís seven percent decline rounded out the top 10.